This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Giving much thought to the future is vain. Only one task is worthy of the doing and that is to express the Here and Now. And to express means building, out of the infinite diversity of the Here and Now, a visage dominating it. It means shaping silence out of stones. Any other claim is but an ado of words that weave the wind.
Diversity | Future | Giving | Means | Silence | Thought | Words | Thought |
More wisdom is latent in things-as-they-are than in all the words men use.
Anne Frank, fully Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank
How true Daddy’s words were when he said: “All children must look after their own upbringing.” Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Advice | Character | Children | Good | Parents | Right | Words |
Man is what he is, not that which can be expressed. True the aim of all awareness is to express that which is, but expression is a slow, elusive task, and it is a mistake to assume that anything incapable of being stated in words does not exist.
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, known as Dean Stanley
The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth.
Conscience | Deeds | Earth | Evil | Good | Little | Soul | Troubles | Will | Words |
Unwelcome are the loiterer, who makes appointments he never keeps; the consulter, who asks advice he never follows; the boaster, who seeks for praise he does not merit; the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; the talker, who talks only because he loves to talk always; the profane and obscene jester, whose words defile; the drunkard, whose insanity has tot the better of his reason; and the tobacco-chewer and smoker, who poisons the atmosphere and nauseates others.
Advice | Better | Insanity | Merit | Praise | Reason | Words |
Poverty and slavery are… only two forms of – one might almost say two words for – the same thing, the essence of which is that a man’s energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others; the outcome being partly that he is overloaded with work, partly that his needs are very inadequately met.
Education does not commence with the alphabet; it begins with a mother's look, with a father's nod of approbation, or a sign of reproof; with a sister's gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother's noble act of forbearance; with handfuls of flowers in green dells, on hills, and daisy meadows; with birds' nests admired, but not touched; with creeping ants, and almost imperceptible emmets; with humming-bees and glass beehives; with pleasant walks in shady lanes, and with thoughts directed in sweet and kindly tones and words to nature, to beauty, to acts of benevolence, to deeds of virtue, and to the source of all good to God Himself!
Beauty | Benevolence | Deeds | Education | Father | Forbearance | God | Good | Mother | Nature | Virtue | Virtue | Words | Deeds | God |
Select the lucky and avoid the unlucky. Ill-luck is generally the penalty of folly, and there is no disease so contagious.
Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda NULL
Words are the shell, meditation the kernel. Words are the body of prayer, and meditation its spirit.
Body | Meditation | Prayer | Spirit | Words |
Distinguish the man of words from the man of deeds.
Deeds | Distinguish | Man | Words |
If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others... In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence.
Conversation | Discretion | Folly | Important |
It doesn't matter what the disease is. There is always room for hope. I'm not going to die because of statistics. I hope you won't either.
Disease | Hope | Statistics |
By reading, we enjoy the dead; by conversation, the living; and by contemplation, ourselves. Reading enriches the memory, conversation polishes the wit; and contemplation improves the judgment. Of these, reading is the most important, as it furnishes both the others.
Contemplation | Conversation | Important | Judgment | Memory | Reading | Wit | Contemplation |
No company is preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.